There is a tremendous need for more reliable, comprehensive and generalizable measures of individual""s behavioral capabilities and better techniques for their attainment. Means to measure the status and changes in status of behavioral capabilities are required to evaluate the effects of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent every year for education, training, therapy and medical services in the United States alone. Employers in business, government and other kind organizations evaluate staff and new hire capabilities attempting to increase successes and avoid failures. Individuals pursuing a desired lifestyle inevitably confront the need to assure being capable to undertake vocational, social and community responsibilities. The rise and fall of businesses, nation powers and of entire civilizations has been consistently attributed to changes in the relative match between required and available capabilities. In these times, human capabilities, rather than ownership of land or military might, is projected to be the basis of future power and wealth.
Available measures of behavioral capabilities inadequately meet this need. They are unreliable, depending on uncontrolled subjective judgements. They are irrelevant to the capabilities actually required, using test scores based on different skills. They are not comprehensive, only addressing some of the types of required capabilities and, therefore of very limited potential validity as predictors of success. They are misleading and destructive, indicating an individual""s deviation from normative behavior rather than the status of an individual""s capability attainment. They are often useless, not providing information on individual""s status on the path to a needed capability. And, for all of these reasons, decisions based on available measures effecting opportunity denials to individuals are often unfair and unjust.
It is common in the prior art to evaluate and enhance behavioral capabilities through measurement methods, systems and apparatuses. U.S. Pat. No. 5,365,425 issued to Torma discloses a method and system for measuring management effectiveness. U.S. Pat. No. 5,344,324 issued to O""Donnell discloses a method and apparatus for testing capability to perform tasks requiring switching of skills. U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,399 issued to Ryan describes a method for evaluating and teaching motivation skills. U.S. Pat. No. 5,082,416 issued to Sclan discloses a process for the adaptation of cognitive and psychological tests for use in the assessment of dementia patients. U.S. Pat. No. 4,770,636 issued to Buschke discloses instrumentation for measuring memory and concentration. U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,140 issued to Rimland discloses a hand held apparatus and method to measure reaction time and awareness. U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,818 issued to Von Fellenberg discloses a self-assessment method and apparatus for measuring relative disposition towards particular tasks. It is apparent from even this brief summary of prior art and confirmed by more extensive search by the inventor that available measures of behavioral capabilities address disparate dimensions and that there is no existing overall typology of capabilities to operationally define the boundaries of a specific behavioral capability dimension or the necessary and sufficient set of capability requirements for a particular role.
It is also common in the prior art to use algorithms to match sets of data involving non-standardized dimensions. U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,278 issued to Graybill uses an algorithm to match sets of data for compression. An algorithm is a specific numerical process comprising a series of operations for arriving at a useful outcome. U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,299 issued to Atkinson discloses an algorithm to compare common and uncommon bits of video data for compression. U.S. Pat. No. 5,323,309 issued to Taylor discloses an algorithm for comparing motion data to switch data sampling rates. U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,633 issued to Geyer discloses an algorithm and device for generating a topology map. U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,558 issued to Acorn discloses an algorithm for prescribing an optimum exercise regimen. U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,829 issued to Dunlap discloses an algorithm for comparing current and previous addresses of network targets. There is no known prior art, however, using an algorithm for comparing data for the evaluation of behavioral capabilities.
Current means for the evaluation and control of individuals"" attainment of behavioral capabilities depend on subjective judgements and psychological testing. Subjective judgements are inherently unreliable and depend on the skills of the person exercising the judgement and his or her understanding of the individual being evaluated and of specific role requirements, all capabilities, in themselves, requiring more reliable, comprehensive and generalizable measures and better techniques for attainment. Psychological testing largely depends on comparing an individual""s score with norms of scores on the identical test obtained from some reference sample of individuals, inherently involving the issue of the relevancy of the test score to the capabilities required for a specific role and situation. Also, current techniques employed in psychological testing do not address all the types of behavioral capabilities required in most roles and, therefore, are of very limited potential validity for predicting success or failure in most roles.
There are no known generalizable means, for example, for measuring the enabling aesthetic capabilities that are required in every person for their own artful living and for many vocational responsibilities. Effective personal, family, organizational and national policies increasingly involve complex trade-offs requiring strategic capabilities for which there are no existing generalizable measurement means. Families, communities and nations are struggling with the destructive effects of inadequate means to evaluate and foster attainment of the ethical and moral capabilities that enable individuals to enter and maintain trusting relationships. And, ultimately, the success of nations and civilizations depend on individual abilities to adopt and contribute to values based on presently unmeasured spiritual attainments.
Existing tests of individual capabilities have been developed around the limited needs and resources of particular users. Intelligence tests were originally developed to identify individuals with below normal mental abilities for admittance to mental institutions. Subsequently, the use of intelligence tests were expanded to identify individuals with minimum or superior mental abilities required for success in schools, military service and jobs. As the single score on intelligence tests was found to mask the status of individuals"" abilities important to users, multiple aptitude tests were developed to identify individuals"" readiness, achievement tests were developed to measure the effects of education and training programs, and personality tests were developed to identify individuals with propensities for desirable and undesirable behaviors. With all these tests, individuals scoring below norms are unfairly labeled as abnormal or as having special needs whereas, in reality, it is the measurement method which is inadequate. The inadvertent labeling of individuals as inadequate, however, effectively discourages individuals from pursuing success at situations using such testing to screen individuals.
Whereas specific individuals and institutions often achieve desired success without explicit measures of behavioral capabilities, those unable to so succeed are more dependent on valid measures for analysis of the lack in required capabilities and for the effective management of their attainment. Without the effective means to attain capabilities for desired, socially acceptable successes, individuals tend to undertake developing the more attainable capabilities for succeeding in socially unacceptable undertakings.
In addition to addressing all the aforementioned inadequacies in available measures of behavioral capabilitiesxe2x80x94unreliability, irrelevancy, uncomprehensiveness, useless misleading and damaging information, contributing to unjust and unfair decisionsxe2x80x94the object of this invention is the following:
1. to define and measure the capability requirements for all roles and positions and in all situations, including for any role in any family or community; for students or teachers in any school; for patients or service providers in any health service setting; and for any job or any responsibility in any organization.
2. to measure the status of any individual""s current capabilities regardless of age, sex, disability or previous experiences.
3. to measure the change in individuals"" capabilities effected by particular experiences (identifiable as a combination of specific interactions, service-providers, services, institutions, costs, times and time periods, including educational and medical settings).
4. to facilitate the use of behavioral measures and the more effective attainment of desired capabilities at earlier ages and by all individuals, families, organizations and, in particular, in managed living, education, work and health care settings.
5. to significantly increase accuracy in predicting the appropriateness of individual""s capabilities to perform successfully in any specific role and situation (by more encompassing, sensitive and discriminating matching of individual""s capabilities attainment status with capabilities requirements).
6. to select the optimum additional experiences to effect a specific change in an individual""s capabilities. (The bases of selection of an experience as optimum may be varied, e.g., between duration, setting, location and cost of experiences, or any other combination of factors.)
7. to identify alternate abilities in achieving success (i.e., alternative ability requirements for the same role and position) and alternative paths to their attainment, thus not wastefully or not unfairly evaluating individuals with unusual ability requirements.
8. to provide individuals with paths of training and in-role experiences with just-right-challenges (neither too boring or too overwhelmingly difficult).
9. to evaluate the capabilities of providers of services targeted to increase individual""s capabilities and to more effectively and accurately match them with the needs students-trainees-patients. (A synergistic benefit is anticipated from applying the processes, systems and apparatuses of this invention to both service providers and recipients of services. The skills honed by providers using the invention in developing their own capabilities, not only result in more skilled services for clients but also provide opportunities for developing improved service provider skills to use the invention with their clients.)
10. to select a role and situation which matches the present or projected capabilities of an individual, including determining or projecting when a student, present staff person or patient will possess the required abilities to undertake or return to a role/situation. (Although it may not be feasible for some individuals to undertake developing the capabilities required for some roles or situations and it is not possible for any individual to develop all required capabilities, with this invention it is feasible for every individual to attain the capabilities required for some roles and situations at any time and for some more demanding roles at some future times.)
11. to efficiently manage the availability of human resources, facilitating the transfer of individuals with particular capabilities surplus in one place and time to other places where the demand for such, or further developed, human resources is greater than the current local supply.
12. to identify discrepancies between estimated capability requirements and actual capability requirements and to automatically implement adjustments indicated thereby to improve the accuracy of applications 1 and 4 above (commonly described as an expert system function).
13. to carry-out ongoing and longitudinal analyses of the data on individuals using the invention so as to identify improvements in the accuracy of indicators defining scales of behavioral capabilities and to automatically implement adjustments indicated thereby to improve the performance of this invention in all applications (commonly described as an expert system function).
14. to establish a database of competency requirements and intervention strategies which, through the expert system functions of this invention, will result in the identification and dissemination of information enabling more people achieving more success in all roles and situations worldwide.
15. to facilitate the further attainment and maintenance of human capabilities, power and true wealth by all individuals, organizations and local and national governments.
16. to facilitate greater, more effective and more efficient development of essential abilities, especially those minimally previously addressed because of inadequacies in available methodologies, resulting in more effective organizations, more cost-effective education, training and health care and, consequently, individuals"" greater attainment of personal goals and overall humanness.
17. to reduce individuals"" tendencies to undertake behaviors and roles undesired by the aesthetic-ethical-moral-spiritual norms of societies by increasing individuals"" access to, and success in, roles valued in such societies.
These objectives are accomplished with an improved process, system and apparatus, all including or related to an algorithm utilizing seven types of behavioral abilities to compare an individual""s attained abilities with all the abilities required for any role in any situation. It has been discovered according to the present invention a process for evaluating an individual""s behavioral capabilities as the profile of differences between required and attained capabilities respectively measured on the same scales and thus canceling out inadequacies in their separate measurement and avoiding misuse of their separate interpretations. It has also been discovered according to the present invention a process for redefining role performance requirements from disparate capability statements to a set of related abilities in a typology of behavioral requirements generalizable to all roles in all situations. It has also been discovered in the present invention an algorithm for constructing a multidimensional structure of related different types of ability elements, each type distinguished by its method of measurement and its relationship with the other types. It has also been discovered according to the present invention a process for identifying individual""s behavioral capabilities as a display of the profile of the differences between attained and required abilities. It has also been discovered according to the present invention a process for evaluating interventions targeted at increasing individuals"" abilities involving evaluation of the affects of pre-intervention abilities and other pre-intervention conditions. It also has been discovered according to the present invention a system for matching individuals with the behavioral requirements of particular roles in situations. It has also been discovered according to the present invention an apparatus for unobtrusively obtaining data on an individual""s brain waves associated with specific computer operations thus minimizing the effects of the data collection process on the operator""s brain waves. It has also been discovered according to the present invention an apparatus for unobtrusively obtaining data on an individual""s tension levels associated with specific computer operations thus minimizing the effects of the data collection process on the operator""s tension. It has also been discovered according to the present invention an algorithm to identify the relative tension inducing effects on computer operators of particular computer presentations.
Further novel features and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the drawings.